As Brexit negotiations come down to the wire, Ornua CEO John Jordan has warned that a hard Brexit will mean an impact on their business which will have a knock-on effect on milk prices in Ireland.

Speaking at the ICMSA AGM, he said the UK accounted for 25% of Ornua’s exports and while the company had diversified over the last decade, particularly into the US, that there was no market that could really replace the UK for their produce.

There is no market that can directly replace the UK

“Overall a hard Brexit will have a significant impact on Ornua, it will have significant impact on the return of our products and ultimately will have a significant impact on milk price,” Jordan told the 120 farmers tuned in to the AGM.

“There is no market that can directly replace the UK, returns from the market are good and they are a particularly good cheddar consumer.”

Jordan said they had looked at ways of mitigating the impact of a hard or soft Brexit, and had taken pre-emptive measures and moved stock to the UK in advance of the Brexit deadline

He said that part of this was to avoid any kind of supply chain delay. However, he still outlined the costs involved in a hard Brexit scenario.

“If there is a hard Brexit with WTO tariffs, for Ornua it will cost us over €100m per annum. Even a soft Brexit will add costs in doing business and make us less competitive.”

On Sunday evening, an Taoiseach Michéal Martin told RTÉ News that his “gut instinct” was that it was 50/50 as to whether a trade deal could be done between the EU and the UK in the coming days.